Well, tomorrow is the first day of summer and we have been getting some nice sunny weather. It has got me inspired to take a break away from the computer and make some summer dresses.

As you may have noticed, I have been inspired by Tessuti patterns of late. They have some different styles that are not complicated to sew which is always a nice when your sewing time is limited. Granted, there are some times when I appreciate the more complicated sewing projects that involve intricate hand sewing details or complicated puzzle pattern pieces, but nothing beats the feeling of accomplishment when you can give that garment a final press before wearing it to work or for a night on the town. And the faster that can come about, the better!

The Coni tunic was released at the beginning of this year. Since Australia’s seasons happens opposite to Canada, it was still cold and rainy when I downloaded this pattern. But hope springs eternal and I figured I would need that time to get to that pattern anyway!

From their website, the Coni tunic is described as a:

” …. relaxed tunic-style dress features a wide neckline, dropped armhole with sleeve bands (optional wide or narrow width), stitched down side seam pockets and side splits. This tunic can be worn on its own or over pants and makes a great beach cover-up. The perfect addition to your summer holiday wardrobe. Note: The Coni Tunic can also be modified into a top. “

Given my bust measurement of 100cm or 40″, I chose to make size ‘2’. The sizing on the Coni has different parameters than some of their previous patterns. My first garment from them was the Pia Dress of which I made the XL based on my measurements and that JUST fit.

I had a piece of this printed linen in my stash. I felt the large scale print would work well with the large pattern pieces. The construction was fairly straight forward however, I wouldn’t call the finished garment a resounding success. Personally, I felt a little overwhelmed by the relaxed-ness of this garment.

So I thought to try again but in the size smaller. Since I’m loving the crinkle linens we have in the store, I decided to copy Tessuti and make it in a white crinkle linen.

One construction challenge in using the crinkle linen was using the self fabric bias tape to finish the neckline. The crinkle linen has so much texture! Do I keep the crinkle texture or do I press it flat? Sewing in the tape would require a lot of pressing so if I kept the crinkle, the tape would grow. If I press the fabric flat, then wash it after it was sewn, would it crinkle up too much? This was supposed to be a quick project!

I decided to hedge my bets and go with a light weight cotton batiste as a bias trim. I chose light weight since I didn’t want to add too much bulk. And although subtle, this batiste had a jacquard stripe which is always pretty on the bias.

Once the garment was done and all the seams and hems were pressed, I threw it in the wash and dryer again to bring back the crinkle.

Much better! I feel like I’m wearing the garment, not swimming in it 🙂

Change is in the air here at the store. I haven’t had much time for sewing lately as we are working on a new website. Although visually the new site will not look much different from the current site, all the big changes will be behind the scenes.

One of the biggest changes is a live integrated inventory system. This way when a fabric sells on the floor, anyone who is using the website can see how much is left. But that also means new equipment, such as a scanning device and bar code printer; training on the new equipment; measuring and assigning a bar code to all the fabrics and notions; and inputting all this onto the new website. Phew! To put that into perspective, the current website has more than 1600 entries. But that is less than 1/4 of what we have on the floor!

Onwards and upwards as they say.

Not that I’ve completed neglected my sewing. Two family members have announced they are expecting. One (my sister) is supposed to be delivering at the end of this month. My sister-in-law is due mid-November. Since she and my brother were in Hong Kong with me back in February, the family laughingly teases them that this baby was Made In China!

As these will be newborns, all I have made is some receiving blankets. A quick and easy project. I’ll save the bibs for a later date. Anyways, that’s what I’ll be telling the new moms!

Spring may have sprung but it is not quite warm enough here to pull out the shorts and T-shirts yet. (Although, as I’m writing this, it is a comfortable 15*C) Instead, I dug out from my stash The Alex and Olive Top pattern by Sewing Workshop since we received these new fancy light silver zippers. I figured the Olive top would be perfect to showcase the zipper.

As described on the Sewing Workshop site, the Olive is a scoop neck knit pullover with diagonal side seams and exposed decorative back zipper on the diagonal. Curved left back hem detail and open vents in long sleeves. Zipper is a 22″ separating zipper.

I chose to use this knit fabric since it has an underlying silver cast to offset the light grey colour of the zip.

Ok. A separating zip? What the heck for? Does this design need a bigger opening to pull over your head? As you can see from the line drawing, this top has quite a scoop neckline which makes it big enough to pull over your head without needing an additional opening. Given that these new zippers did not separate, I decided to ignore that requirement.

As with all the other Sewing Workshop patterns I have tried, the instructions are well explained and illustrated. However, a sewing instruction I decided to ignore was to baste the back opening together to be later removed so back seam would open. Umm … why? Since that made no sense to me and it did not affect the integrity of the design, I sewed that seam, not basted. And even though I have a cover stitch machine for hemming knits, I did not use it for this garment because of the angles of the vents in the sleeves and back opening.

When I first put this on, I thought the sleeves were too long. But now I quite like them since they remind me of flounced sleeves without being too frilly. Another comment about this garment; I found the sleeves a snug fit. Or else I have Popeye arms from hauling bolts of fabric all day!

Overall, a cute design!

via me.me

Disregarding the fact that spring has not made its appearance yet, we are having our spring sale! Shop online using the sale code SpringFling for 25% off all regular priced fabric (including new arrivals). Check out the sale section for some fabrics at 70% off! Of course, if you are in the area, come by and check out the fabrics in person. Sale continues until March 17, 2019.

I lived in Hong Kong from 1980 to 1984 before moving to British Columbia, Canada. I haven’t been back since so when the opportunity came up to visit, I took it! I knew there were many changes in the country since the early ’80’s, so I was interested to see if I still remembered the places that I had frequented when there.

The visit was scheduled over Chinese New Year, which is good in some ways but not so good in other ways. Chinese New Year is the biggest holiday of the year where many businesses and factories close for 2 weeks. (As one taxi driver explained, many factories were closed for longer this year because the contentious trade talk between China and USA had slowed factory production.) But since I was mainly there for family reasons, shopping was not a priority.

Back in the 70’s and 80’s, the fabric trade was a booming business. Many fabric retail stores lined Nathan Road and they carried everything from cottons to silks to imported woollens and European laces. My family owned three stores; Gala Fabrics Ltd, Illinois and Fourseas Silk Company. Fourseas Silk Company was the largest as it occupied 3 floors in a building on the corner of Nathan Road and Tak Shing Street. I remember playing hide and seek with my siblings among the stacks of fabric and watching the pretty ladies come in and be served tea while they shopped. The city later laid claim to some of the ground floor and basement to provide access for the then new MTR station. The building still stands however, the fabric business has moved to a second floor location on the corner of Nathan Road and Austin Road. I would have liked to go inside to see if I recognized anything, but the current tenant of that space was closed for the holidays.

As is the situation in the West, there are few fabric stores left in Hong Kong. There may be some located in the Sham Shui Po district but everything was closed when I went to check. The family still has a presence in the rag trade in Hong Kong. The current store is Gala Fabrics Ltd located at 186 Nathan Road. It is located on the second floor and carries a selection of silks and fancy laces. Sorry, no quilting cottons here. Instead, this store caters to people requiring fancy gala outfits as there is also an onsite tailor who is knowledgeable in both Western and Asian design.

My eldest uncle is the patriarch of the fabric business however he is no longer active as a business person. He focuses his time on his philanthropic endeavours as he is an active member of Rotary International, the Scout Association of Hong Kong, the Police Auxillary Force, the Junior Police Corp., the Hong Kong Buddist Association as well as the Tung Wah Group of Hospitals. But he loves to throw a party! Here, we are enjoying a Chinese New Year feast at the store.

We also got to watch the fireworks celebrating Chinese New Year. However, with the smog in the air and the residual smoke from the fireworks, the sky became so murky, you couldn’t see the light display!

A novel and exciting experience for me personally was going to visit my grandparents’ graves. Traditionally, the girls do not visit as it was the boy’s duty. Even though my father is the youngest of seven, he is the only son who has children. As far as I know, my aunts and therefore their children, my cousins either male or female, have not visited the graves. Gotta love patriarchal laws! However, that ‘rule’ has been relaxed recently since many families do not have sons, especially since the Chinese one child policy.  Little did I know I would have to gird my loins to access the graves since we had to climb all over different areas of the cemetery! I’m not sure if I could find the graves by myself, but thankfully, my cousin knows.

We had the opportunity to visit our old residence. Located in the hills of Hong Kong Island, Braemar Hills was where we called home. And it hasn’t really changed in the years since. The surrounding area has developed a lot though; new schools, more apartment buildings, an increased shopping area.

A huge change that bought bittersweet memories is of the old airport, Kai Tak International. Located in the middle of Kowloon City on a finger of reclaimed land, Kai Tak was an exhilarating experience for the air traveller. And a grey hair inducing experience for the pilot, I’m sure. Afterall, its nickname was Kai Tak Heart Attack.

I remember being able to look into people’s apartments and watch their TV shows as the plane came in to land. Or older gentlemen doing tai chi on their balconies. Don’t believe me on how close the planes came to buildings? Check out the pictures in this article! But as with any growing city, the airport became too small to handle the air traffic and was decommissioned in July 1998. Now it acts as a cruise ship terminal.

What fun it was to visit all these places. And even some of the fashion choices have come back! Leggings and ripped jeans to name a few!

If you get the chance to visit Hong Kong but are dreading the 14 hour flight time, try a business class seat in Hong Kong Airlines. Talk about luxury! I have travelled business class before with other airlines, but that usually involved a slightly wider seat. What I got with Hong Kong Airlines was a fully reclining chair with a lap quilt, real silverware with my meal and my own TV/movie screen. Those 14 hours just flew by! I definitely recommend it. Bon voyage!

Since I have all these leggings made up, now I need tops! I prefer the slightly longer tops as I am a believer that leggings are not pants. Burda 6475 intrigued me since it is a longer tunic, it has a hood and I loved the kangaroo pocket. The front yoke is cut on the bias so I thought that was an interesting design detail.

It is a fairly easy pattern to put together. Just make sure you use a heavy needle to get through all those layers when top stitching! One little hiccup area that stalled me for a bit was threading the cord on the hood through the eyelet. (I used a Prym’s 5mm silver eyelet since I had extra from another project.)

The instructions suggest a (twill) tape as a drawstring which I guess would be easier to thread with a large eyed needle. I, however, chose a 1/4″ round braided cord. I taped the ends to make an aglet (the plastic end of a shoelace) as suggest by the pattern. The problem was that I couldn’t feed the cord past the front top stitched seams of the hood. It just wasn’t firm enough to feed through that thick spot. I couldn’t thread a needle because the doubled cord wouldn’t fit through the eyelet.

What I did end up doing was ‘lassoing’ the cord onto a large eye wool needle. Worked like a charm!

And here is the garment. Unfortunately, the deer didn’t seem as excited as I was!

Leggings seem to be a basic wardrobe necessity of which my wardrobe is lacking. With all the cotton knits the store is now carrying, it seemed like a good opportunity to remedy this situation. Being such a simple design, they should be quick and easy to make.

I liked McCalls 6360 as it has a variety of pant lengths to choose from.

Starting with some basic black cotton lycra knit, I chose option E (middle style on bottom row) in size 14. Option E actually has small side zippers at the bottom of the leggings but I omitted those.

So, can you spot the difference? Same colour top, same colour leggings, even some gold sandals (although I will admit not as fancy!) Standing at 5’3″ or 161cm in my bare feet, I don’t consider myself a short person. But certainly not model tall either. Yet the finished length on this pattern comes down to my ankle, not my lower calf as in the pattern picture. I ended up shortening them by 5″ or 12.5cm! There is a shorten/lengthen line to do this, but I spread out the total 5″ by also shortening at the hem line for style A, the shortest style as well.

Now I have a closer approximation of the length suggested by the pattern.

Then when the space printed cotton knits arrived, I had to make a pair of those! I decided to pair them with the tunic top Butterick 6388. The blue top is a light weight ponte in size large as per my 39″ bust (99cm)

The purple top is a bamboo cotton french terry but in a size medium.

As per my comments when I blogged about B6388, I think the size L is too big. I’m much preferring the smaller size. And even though I already shortened the top by 4″ or 10cm, I think I will shorten it some more by a couple inches.

It may take a couple tries, but success is feasible!